Preston Brashers
Congress has a decision to make. Hang American small business owners out to dry, or lock in a tax system that allows America’s entrepreneurs to thrive?
That’s the question Congress must answer when deciding whether to renew critical expiring provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA).
Passed by Congress less than a year into President Donald Trump’s first term, TCJA implemented tax cuts, structural reforms and simplifications that helped produce the booming American economy of 2018 and 2019. The results? 50-year unemployment lows and rapid gains in median household income – prosperity that would have continued apace if not for COVID-19 and the ensuing massive glut of federal spending.
But if TCJA is allowed to expire at the end of the year, nobody will be hit harder than small businesses.
What Made America Great in the Gilded Age
Before TCJA, flaws in the tax code discouraged businesses from investing in machinery and equipment by not allowing them to fully deduct those costs in the year they made those investments.
Instead, the tax code spread out those deductions for five, seven, 10, 15 or 20 years—an eternity for a small business owner scraping by with tiny profit margins and limited access to credit.
This kind of system would be especially harmful in the high-inflation environment that’s resulted from the breakneck pace of federal spending during the early 2020s. By the time deductions for machinery and equipment could be fully claimed, inflation could wipe out much of those deductions’ value.
It makes no sense to have a tax code that penalizes business owners for investing in their factories, workers and communities. But that flawed, old system has been phasing back in for the past three years and will return in full force in January if Congress doesn’t act.
Small startup tech companies—which spend heavily on research and experimental costs—face a similar situation. » Read More
https://www.heritage.org/taxes/commentary/extending-the-trump-tax-cuts-small-business-provisions-critical-main-street